


Freshen All Our Souls

by jesterlady



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Friendship/Love, Gen, One Shot, Science Fiction, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-06
Updated: 2011-11-06
Packaged: 2017-10-25 18:19:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/273319
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jesterlady/pseuds/jesterlady
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The trip home to Earth after the Doctor's Daughter.  The Doctor and Martha clear the air.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Freshen All Our Souls

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own DW. The title is by Johann Cruger

The trip back to earth was the quietest Tardis trip Donna had ever taken. The Doctor seemed to have lost the will to pretend he was fine. She hadn’t seen him this way since she’d first met him after he’d lost Rose. And though Donna didn’t know Martha well, it seemed like there was something weighing on her as well.

The Tardis was taking her time, something the Doctor said she needed to do after her little paradox inducing spasm. Martha sat high above the console, her arm wrapped around a coral strut. The Doctor moodily pressed buttons. Donna went into the kitchen. She couldn’t stand it anymore.

***

The Doctor went on pressing buttons, slowly fighting his way back to being able to grin and blather and caper his way about his life. Then he looked up and saw Martha. And he smiled.

Climbing up beside her, he gave her a nudge.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. I’m just anxious to be home.”

“What away from me and all this?”

“Yes, Doctor, I’m afraid so.”

She smiled at him as if to show she meant it in a good way.

“Martha Jones, I know you. There’s something eating away inside that head of yours. As a physician, I must make a proper diagnosis before I can let you back into the incredibly fragile Earth atmosphere.”

“You’re mad.” She shoved him gently and then whispered. “You know all the times I asked you what the matter was or if you were okay and you just looked at me or said you were always fine and basically refused to talk to me?”

He wondered if it was a rhetorical question, but then realized she was going to make him answer.

“I do, a bit, yeah.”

“That’s what I want to do to you right now.”

“Well, I can see that, yes, probably right… No, I’m still going to ask because I should do right by you.”

“Yes, you should. I love traveling in the Tardis, you know. It’s like I said, that first bit when you open the door and don’t know where you are, it’s fantastic.”

He grinned. He loved that expression on her face.

“No other feeling like it.”

“But there’s loss involved and heartache. You know, Doctor. I might not have been with you this whole trip, but I saw what Jenny meant to you and I know that you’re dying inside. You can’t deny it. I’m not blinded by your alien magnetism or whatever it is that makes you so wonderful. I still love you to bits, but I’m not blind anymore.”

“You’re awfully…blunt.”

The Doctor wasn’t comfortable with the word love. Even if he felt it.

“Well, tough.” Martha turned to look at him. “A Hath died for me just as Jenny died for you. And that can happen on Earth, but it’s more likely to happen traveling with you and it just made me think of the Year That Never Was. Tom died for me once, even if he only knows it cause I told him about it.”

“A good man would die for you.”

The Doctor wasn’t sure what to do with this information. He couldn’t pass it off, although that’s what he was tempted to do.

“And I love him. Even if everything changed. But he’s not the man I wanted to die for me, or be willing to, since I’d rather no one die for me, really.”

“Well, let’s hope. Cross our fingers.” He took her hand in his. “Martha, I would die for you. It might mean less to you knowing that I’d regenerate, but that’s just who I am. You’re…you’re brilliant. I find that I’m the luckiest man alive, because I find these amazing humans to look after me. If I’m bathed in blood or heartbroken or reeling from consequences of my own making, you all make me better. You healed me, Dr. Jones. And I’m sorry, I’m so, so sorry I never told you, I never thanked you, really. I can’t believe you stayed with me long as you did, well, I am pretty marvelous, but let’s face it; everything you went through was on account of me. Would’ve had me running for the hills, I can tell you.

And I can see you. You once said that I never even looked at you, but let me tell you, I could see through that clone of yours in a second, because there wasn’t a chance that wasn’t my magnificent Martha Jones. Who do you think the Doctor needs to run to when he’s wounded? His Doctor.” He leaned in close and kissed her forehead. “You’re my Doctor.”

She gaped at him and started to laugh. She laughed for ages and looked a million times better. He felt a little nonplussed for a second, but he laughed too and knew the good of it.

“Always laugh, Doctor,” she gasped out.

“I like your prescription, Doctor.”

At that she laughed some more. And he laughed some more. Then he hugged her and she hugged him and they sat there for awhile.

“That means a lot to me, Doctor,” she said quietly. “I won’t forget it and you better not either. Cause there’s a lot that can happen in your life.”

“I daresay. I just got kidnapped by own ship. My own ship, mind you.”

“Get off it. You loved it.”

“Not all of it, but someday I may get over it.”

“That may be the first real thing I’ve ever heard you say.”

“You wound me, Miss Jones.”

“You’re fine, Mr. Smith.”

She obviously thought the serious part of the conversation was over, but something was urging him on. Something he usually ignored.

“If I’d met you years ago or years later, Martha,” he said suddenly, “and if I wasn’t who I am, I’d never let you walk out that door. I would lov-“

“Don’t go there, mister. That’s amazing and all that. But Jenny’s death really must have hit you if that’s a word you’re willing to say.”

“It did.”

His voice was hard.

“I’m sorry.”

“Thank you.”

She hugged him again and he kissed the top of her head and even as they settled under the weight of his most recent loss his hearts felt lighter than they had in a long time.

“Oi, have you two finished merry making, cause I think we’ve landed.”

Donna’s voice lifted up from below and the Doctor grinned. He hopped to his feet and pulled Martha up with him.

“Maybe we’re not on Earth,” he said excitedly. “After all, I tried to drop Tegan off for years and it never worked.”

“I don’t think so, Doctor,” Martha said warningly. “That better be Earth and the right year too.”

“Let’s go find out!”

And he pulled her toward the door where Donna awaited them.


End file.
